When we deepen Respect, we expand Opportunity.
When we expand opportunity, we enable Achievement.
And when we enable achievement, we unleash the power of Diversity in our neighborhoods and our workplaces.
In November 2020, the Enterprise Holdings Foundation announced the ROAD Forward program and pledged $55 million over five years to organizations that advance social and racial equity in the communities where the company operates.
As part of the initiative, the company is allocating $20 million across four nationally renowned nonprofit partners – The Obama Foundation’s My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, United Negro College Fund, Girls Inc. and Parents as Teachers – as part of a commitment to young people of color in underserved communities.
Click the image above to hear from Parents as Teachers President/CEO Constance Gully or read more about the organization below.
Get to Know Parents as Teachers
Parents as Teachers builds strong communities, thriving families and children who are healthy, safe and ready to learn by matching parents and caregivers with trained professionals who make regular personal home visits during a child’s earliest years in life, from prenatal through kindergarten.
Their approach is intimate and relationship-based. They embrace learning experiences that are relevant and customized for the individual needs of each family and child. Their goals? To increase parent knowledge and engagement, increase school readiness and success, provide early detection of developmental delays and health issues and prevent child abuse.
More than a dozen outcome studies have been conducted on the effects of the Parents as Teachers model. Results show:
* Children’s developmental delays and health problems are detected early.
* Children enter kindergarten ready to learn and the achievement gap is narrowed.
* Children achieve school success into the elementary grades.
* Parents improve their parenting knowledge and skills.
* Parents are more involved in their children’s schooling.
* Families are more likely to promote children’s language and literacy.
* Child abuse and neglect is prevented.
The Impact of ROAD Forward
The impact of ROAD Forward is substantial.
As a direct result of ROAD Forward funding, for the first time in Parents as Teacher’s history, they have hired a National Director of Equity who will help lead diversity efforts at the national center and also support local affiliates on their journey.
They now have the ability to create a parent access point to improve communication with the parents and provide them direct, 24-hours-a-day access to parenting information.
Additionally, the organization will launch a research study focused on equity amongst the families they serve to better understand the role race places on maternal and infant mortality and social determinants of health. The goal of this project helps their work to make life expectancy among African American women and infants equal to non-Hispanic white mothers and their children.
They now also have the ability to address translation needs, ensuring equal access to the curriculum for parents and parent educators who provide services to Spanish, Somali and other primary language speakers.
For more information, click here.
